Shhh. The movie's starting.

I'm doing my annual doc block with 3+ days of movies.

Yesterday, opening day, we saw a film about the booming film industry in Nigeria, Catalonians who spend an inordinate amount of time climbing onto one another's shoulders to build fifty-foot high human towers that quite often collapse, a new look at DA Pennebaker's landmark footage of Bob Dylan's UK tour of '65, and two people talking about Katrina.

I love documentaries. Give me a good argument over whether there's objective verite in cinema verite and I'm a happy man.

Durham has received some pretty ugly publicity this week, even attracting the unblinking gaze of media harridans Rita Cosby and Nancy Grace, attention usually reserved for missing white women.

Yes, Durham has its troubles. But it also has the Durham Bulls, a terrific independent book store and this, what's been called the Cannes of documentary film festivals. In the ten years of this festival, and yes, I have attended every one, watching movies until my ass is flat, Durham has played host to Sydney Pollack, Martin Scorsese, Harry Shearer, Ken Burns, Michael Moore, Al Franken, and hundreds of other filmmakers. It's a lot like writers' conferences in a way, and I'll talk more about that next week. After the festival.

But for now, you'll excuse me if the planet is a bit darker than usual.

I have movies to see.